


If There's A Light at the End, It's Just the Sun in Your Eyes

by AnonymousPumpkin



Series: Homestuck Prompt Fills [3]
Category: Homestuck
Genre: Destiny, Discussions of death, Fantasy AU, Fate, Gen, Prophecies, The tags make it look much more depressing than it is, discussions of fate, mentions of human sacrifice
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-06-05
Updated: 2016-06-05
Packaged: 2018-07-12 08:32:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,341
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7094434
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/AnonymousPumpkin/pseuds/AnonymousPumpkin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A not-so-drabble written for a prompt. Two children on the cusp of adulthood discuss fate and prophecy as they end the foretold end of their lives. Whether or not they believe in that end, of course, is another thing entirely.</p><p>Nondescript Fantasy AU where Rose and Dave are twins, the trolls are Gods, and there's a really fucked up prophecy they really don't want to be tied to.</p>
            </blockquote>





	If There's A Light at the End, It's Just the Sun in Your Eyes

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt 83: Fulfilled
> 
> Holy fuck did this get away from me. This started out as like a little introspective DEFINITELY CANON drabble about Rose and her fate, and now it's huge and has world-building and a plot and shit. Also the title comes from a song that is DEFINITELY NOT RELATED to the story. I just liked the line and it fit.
> 
> Also, the story is definitely not related to the prompt, I guess. When I started out, it totally was, and then it spiraled out of control. You'll notice this is kind of a thing. Also, if parts seem rushed, it's because I wrote this entire thing in the span of, like, four hours, which is REALLY FUCKING FAST for me.

“You know…for someone whose entire life has been built around the idea that she was born for one great purpose, I have never really put much faith in destiny.”

Rose said the words slowly, carefully. She had been rehearsing them for a very long time, had changed that one sentence so many times it barely resembled its first form, but it was the nearest thing to the complete truth that language was capable of conveying.

It was not that she disbelieved that some people were more _inclined_ to success or to failure, but she didn’t think that kind of thing could be predicted at birth. Magic was magic, and time was time, but ultimately everything that happened was a product of the choices one made. Her own abilities were proof of that, she thought. How many times had she helped someone avert disaster, which any seer would have foretold as _destiny_?

Following this train of thought through to its treacherous conclusion, there was the implication then she had never really believed that _she_ had been chosen for some higher, greater purpose, or that her powers had been given to her by anything other than chance and perhaps a culmination being the latest in several generations of powerful mages. The Priestesses had been utterly delighted when Rose’s powers developed, and not a word in any language could’ve expressed their joy when her Powers developed. Not just a mage, not just a witch, not a seer but a _Seer_. And a Seer of _Light_ on top of that! That would appease the gods, surely. That would win the day! Any old mage would take on an evil spirit, but a _Seer_ was something else entirely. Not a one of them was surprised, they’d told her. It was, after all, her destiny to be great and powerful. She was The Child, after all.

Even at seven, Rose had found this a bit difficult to swallow.

Did she have the potential for greatness? Yes, just as much as another priestess did. Was she predisposed for greatness? Possibly, given the circumstances and the special treatment she’d gotten. Did she really think that she had been _born_ for the sole purpose of being “great and powerful”? Not really, no.

The very nature of her magic seemed to belie the idea. She saw the future, it was true, but the future she saw was so wavering and unformed that she couldn’t put any faith in the idea that it was set in stone. More than the future, she saw _possibility_ , and it was hard to believe in an inevitable event when confronted with that. The future was less of a one-way path, she decided, and more of faint trail in the woods, which twisted, turned, branched, and at some places completely vanished. When she got older, she decided that “fate” was a maze, and the only thing waiting at the end was death. Any “great” thing that happened on the way depended entirely on which way you turned.

Then again, she supposed her unwillingness to submit to the supposed inevitability of all things may have had a tiny something to do with the fact that she was, supposedly, destined to die. Messily. Painfully. _Willingly_.

“Huh.”

Dave’s voice broke her inner monologue effectively, and her eyebrow raised at his decidedly noncommittal response to what was, in her opinion, something of an earth-shattering confession.

“Surely you have something more than _that_ to say, brother dearest,” she prodded. “I have just informed you that I consider our entire lives nothing more than a polished lie.”

“… _huh_.”

Rose looked sidelong at her twin. Were the situation less grim, she might feel annoyed. He wasn’t looking at her, but rather at the sun that was setting over the ocean. They’d been sitting here for nearly an hour now, watching what was, if destiny and prophecy held true, their last sunset.

The distant sound of the waves crashing against the cliffs was the only sound. There were no seagulls to be heard, no insects screaming, no animals calling. This temple was pristine, but eerily silence. Besides them, there was not a living thing here, and hadn’t been for centuries. It was a good place for reflection, or so she’d been told. That was why they were here, the last stop in their Pilgrimage before they made their Ultimate Sacrifice. She had also decided that it was a good place for secrets. For confessions.

Dave still hadn’t responded, and she wasn’t sure how she felt about that. Her stomach was churning uncomfortably, and her fingers absently played with the golden cords of her robes. She hoped it was the only outward tell of her anxiety.

She had been thirteen when she met her twin brother for the first time since their birth. It was strange to see him as a flesh-and-blood being now instead of red ink on a page, and that was the first time in her life that Rose had ever felt like anything that had ever happened to her was _meant to be_. Meeting Dave was no accident, of course; it had always been intended that they would be reunited when they reached their majority, so that they could learn to work together to better fulfill the purpose they had been given. Rose had been told ever since she’d found she had a brother that when she was older, she would meet him, and together they would fulfill their destiny and save the world.

Maybe that was why being with him felt so _right_. It could very well have been nothing more than the subtle machinations of the priestesses, manipulating her thoughts and her heart so that she would be more receptive to spending the last months of her life alone with a stranger.

Dave had never felt like a stranger, though. For all that they were different (and, with one of them raised by priestesses of Void, and the other by priests of Heart, they honestly could not be more different if they tried), and for all that they clashed (their bickering matches were legendary, and the closest thing, she was sure, that any of the holy servants ever got to public entertainment), at the end of the day, Rose felt as if they had been _made_ for each other...no. That was too cliché, and a tad too romantically inclined to even _think_. Rose felt as if they had been _made_ together, like they were each of them only half of one whole. Every shortcoming of his was a strength of hers, and every one of her flaws he easily compensated for. It felt as if her entire life she had been one half of a puzzle, yearning without even realizing for her other half. They were twins, brother and sister, and all that that entailed. She was more at home with him than she had felt in any temple with any priest, and that was the only part of this entire business that she had not come to despise.

Although, she might come close if he kept up this silent treatment.

“Dave, as much as I appreciate your stoic, masculine silences, and the toxic culture of domination and emotional repression that they represent,” she said carefully, “I do believe that in this particular instance, words would be far more comforting, and probably would accomplish a great deal more good.” She was proud that her voice didn’t shake, didn’t betray the fear she felt eating at her gut. She had never, _never_ once in her life, dared to even whisper anything resembling the words she’d just said. To do so would have spat in the face of everything their parents, their priests and priestesses, everything that everyone had done for them. For The Child to _dare_ to say that she didn’t believe she needed to die? Blasphemy of the most insidious nature.

Dave finally turned to look at her, smirking ever so slightly. His tone was light, but his eyes didn’t dance as they normally did. They were dark and contemplative even as he drawled, “Damn, Lalonde, thought you’d never spit that out.”

That had…not been the answer she had been expecting. And yet she wasn’t surprised. Rose tried to hide her half-sob of relief behind a sharp laugh. Her fingers stopped playing with her cords, and she reached up to smooth her wind-ruffled hair out of her face.

“Ah! Am I to presume then that you knew all along of my disbelief, and were merely going along with the charade for my benefit?” she suggested lightly, but he knew that she wasn’t even remotely joking. His eyes were still dark, even as he laughed along.

“I mean, obviously,” he said. “I mean, isn’t that all we ever do? That’s our whole damn lives in a nutshell, ain’t it? I mean, I never believed in that destiny crap, but you always got off on that macabre shit. Didn’t wanna break your heart.”

"Truly, I am blessed to have such a considerate and kind brother,” she said, not as jesting as it should have been. “Well, in any case, I am glad that we have finally cleared the air, and can continue on the rest of our short lives knowing we have each other’s confidences, and that our thoughts are so aligned. It will be comforting to know at the altar that neither of us really think this is necessary.”

Dave snorted, but didn’t reply. He stared at her for a moment longer, and then looked away, back to where the sun had nearly vanished behind the waves. Neither of them said anything for a long time, lost in the gravity of the moment.

The black sea stretched endlessly before them, it seemed, and just looking at it made Rose feel small and cold. It didn’t help that there was nothing separated from that deadly expanse but the air. This temple had been built right on the border between land and sea, and their feet dangled over the edge of the balcony that extended only an inch from the edge of the cliffs. There was nothing below them but rock and frigid water. The first time they’d come here, she’d nearly collapsed with terror, and even now, she sat a little too close to Dave for his comfort. Still, if she fell, he would catch her, or die trying.

The darkness settled on them comfortably. Neither of them had issues with the darkness, but Rose found herself sliding an inch closer nonetheless. She looked sidelong at him again. He stared back at her, red eyes glowing faintly in the dark. In the center of his forehead, the Mark glowed as well, a physical manifestation of their so-called destiny.

“So…you don’t believe either?” It came out quieter than she would have liked, less certain. She turned to face him.

He looked away, suddenly uncomfortable. He shrugged, scratched his nose, fidgeted with the blade laid across his lap. Dave didn’t like to challenge the established order. It was, she’d come to understand, a byproduct of his upbringing as well as his abilities. Dave had gotten an even worse time of the whole “destined for greatness” spiel than she had. While Rose had been educated and mentally groomed, and merely _told_ what she was going to be, Dave had been _physically_ perfected, with literally nonstop drills and fights and lessons. From the second he woke until the second he slept, he had been constantly on alert for an attack or lecture, and he’d admitted to her that sometimes the lines between the two blurred.

“You don’t have to answer,” she said softly, but he waved her off. She was whispering by instinct, hands held close to her chest, legs ready to leap away if something went wrong.

"I mean…hard to say, right?” He answered in the same quiet, breathless tone, like they were children again, sneaking around the temple eavesdropping and stealing treats. “With me, it’s not so much destiny as…well… _discipline_.” He scratched at his forehead meaningfully. “I can only go backwards, right? Like sometime tonight, I have to go back and help myself fix this sword, for some reason, even though it’s crap and I don’t need it anymore. To me, right now, that’s not destiny. It’s just fact. I know it _has_ to happen because it already has, right? But to the me from back then, the _past_ me? It sure feels a lot like fate.”

“It does ultimately depend on you, doesn’t it.” It should have been a question, but she didn’t present it as such. Dave had a very different, if no less intimate, relationship with time, but she had come to understand that his Powers were no less grounded in choice than hers. “Still, the fact of it is that it was your choice. There was no divine plan set out saying you had to break that sword, at least none of which I’m aware. No god has ascended from below to tell you that you have to go back and help yourself fix it. You decided to. Not the you _now_ , but the you in the past. I think that is the difference. There was no compulsion, no set path, no endgame.”

“I guess. It’s hard to tell sometimes. Sometimes, I do make the decision right then. Like ‘You know what, fuck this shit, I’m gonna come back later and help myself out with this,’ and bam. There I am. Conscious decision, made by Dave Strider.” He paused, ran his finger along the edge of the blade. It glowed softly beneath his fingertips as the enchantment protected him. It wouldn’t do for him to hurt himself on something silly like a sword. “But other times, I show up and I didn’t even expect it. I _surprise_ myself. And later I go back, not because I want to, but because I know I have to. Because I already did. Those times…those times, I don’t know. Those times, I do almost feel like something _has_ to happen.” His face twisted into a childishly defiant expression. “I mean, it was kind of like that with us, right? I mean, sure, there _was_ a prophecy that said we’d be born and all that shit, but our parents made the choice to have us.”

“And it was not a choice made lightly, if Mother’s tales are any indication.” Rose almost smiled as she remembered being twelve and _horrified_ as her mother drunkenly described that night in far too much detail. She’d often bemoan the fact that the ritual, which should have been cause for celebration, was utterly ruined by the fact that the other half had absolutely no desire to go through with it. Her mother had submitted herself willingly to bear The Child, glad to be contributing to the supposed salvation of the universe, but Dirk Strider had been dragged kicking and screaming to the altar…quite literally, if some of the stories were to believed.

“Hell no,” Dave agreed vehemently. “He _never_ talked about it, but you could tell that shit sucked. Who the hell _wants_ that kind of thing? Priests show up at your door one day, like, ‘Hey, we know you don’t really care for that kind of thing, but we need you to knock up this woman to fulfill some ancient prophecy you’ve never heard that’s probably complete and utter bullshit.’ Shit’s ridiculous,” he decided, and Rose found herself nodding in agreement.

“ _He_ must have believed it, though. Otherwise, he would never have done it.” Rose had only met the man who’d sired her a handful of times, and he had not struck her as the kind of man who would do anything he didn’t want to do if he didn’t have a damned good reason for it. She had tried, for several months now, to model herself after him, to give herself the courage and the resignation needed to face what lay ahead for her. Her Sight told her that the ritual would only go well if she readily submitted with little fuss.

“I guess.” He fell silent, turned away. For a few long moments, they were in silence once again.

Jaspers wandered in from the shadows, dropping into Rose’s lap with a graceless snort. She petted him absently. She’d stopped being surprised when he showed up. He’d died years ago, when she was nine or ten, and her mother had cast some spell that kept his spirit tied to the earth, at the cost of a few…mortal things. He was technically a universal abomination, half living and half dead, a spirit that roamed without a body but had a purpose. He walked only in shadow, materialized only at night, and was the dearest friend she had, excepting Dave. He was also still very warm and fuzzy, so there was that too.

Rose turned away from Dave at last, looking up to the stars that spread out before them, as vast and intimidating as the sea. There was no moon tonight, absolutely nothing to challenge the gods’ brilliance. She picked out the constellations of their patrons, the Gods that had blessed them at six years old, cementing their fate as the Ultimate Sacrifice. She felt an itch in her knees that told her that she should be praying right now, bowing her head and knee to the Archer. Or perhaps to the Spider. The Spider was the one that had touched her, after all, though she had been raised with the Archer’s words. She wondered if they cared at all. If they bickered over her affections. If they ever heard her prayers.

“You know…I think this prophecy shit isn’t all it was cracked up to be.” Dave broke the silence boldly, and Rose blinked.

“What makes you say that?” she asked hesitantly.

“Well I mean…it didn’t say a damned thing about there being _two_ of us. It was pretty specific with everything else, right? ‘Forged from the nothing of the soul shall come The Child who shall save us,’ or something right? It was pretty damn clear it meant a Void and a Heart would get it on and make something _else_. It even had our damn birthday in there somewhere. It said we’d have bright eyes, be touched by gods at six. But nowhere did it say, ‘Oh yeah, by the way, it’s a two-of-one special, buy one kid, get an extra for _absolutely nothing_ , good luck trying to sort out which parts of the prophecy apply to which kid, dipshit.’”

Rose considered this. She knew that Dave, like herself, knew the Prophecy by heart, and she admitted that that… _particular_ detail had always bothered her. “It did specify there would be _one_ ,” she acceded. “That was rather the point, wasn’t it?”

“Exactly. It was very big on the whole ‘standing alone’ part. It’s hard to stand alone when there’s two of you.” He sighed, ran his fingers through his hair. It had grown long in the six months they’d been at this temple, and Rose’s fingers often itched to comb it or at the very least pat it down. He looked downright uncivilized. “That seems like a pretty important detail to get wrong, considering all the prep work that’s supposed to go into this. I mean, hell. The whole point of _this_ —” he gestured to the temple around them, silent and desolate— “is for solitude, right? Complete solitude? To get us prepared for the _loneliness_ that is our inevitable death? Kind of hard to be alone when there’s _two of you_.”

“That does seem like quite an oversight.” It had always delighted her, actually, to some degree. The altar and instrument of their deaths had been prepared nearly a century before they were born, and it had turned everyone on their head when they realized they would suddenly have to figure out how to kill two people at the same time with one knife on an altar built for one body, and catch all the blood in one bowl. She hoped she was the unwanted extra, if only for the satisfaction of knowing she had made everything difficult.

“Right. A really big fucking oversight. Like, we’re talking continent-size oversight, given how much fucking magic goes into this kind of thing.” He reached up and smoothed his bangs over his forehead, hiding the glowing red Mark. “I mean, they also got our aspects wrong…or at least, the priests did. They all thought we were going to be Space. Must’ve shit themselves when I woke up with this red shit on my head.”

“Yes, I recall some of the priestesses being quite scandalized when I showed my affinity for Light,” Rose reminisced fondly. “They suddenly weren’t sure what to do with me.”

“I think the gods are probably up there having a laugh about this whole thing. Is it even a god-sanctioned prophecy? At this point, I don’t even fucking remember.”

She could tell that wasn’t the extent of it, and she waited for it to burst out of him. She had an inkling where he was going with this, and it made her stomach tie itself in anxious knots. Her mind felt fuzzy like she was trying to reach into the future, but she Saw nothing.

“So, I figure…if _that_ part’s bullshit…then, I mean…what’s to say the rest of it isn’t bullshit too?” he finally said. “I mean, c’mon…an all-powerful, world-eating demon from another universe who leaves the most vague fucking clues in all of paradox space for his coming? And the only way to defeat him is ritual _suicide_? That is some quality bullshit if I’ve ever heard it.”

Chills ran up Rose’s spine. She remembered her mother’s voice, soft and urgent, telling her in a voice uncharacteristically un-slurred _not to tell_ …and she felt her Sight, picking at her tongue. She forced her voice to stay as casual it could, given the circumstances. “Hm. Well, if it’s any consolation, Mother told me that the improvised ritual isn’t really suicide.” At his questioning look, Rose admitted softly, “We’re supposed to kill each other now.”

Dave’s look echoed the horror Rose had felt when her mother had told her. She’d had a few months now to internalize and process the information, and while it no longer made her shake and cry like she had before, it still made her heart go cold.

Dave’s mouth opened and closed a few times without forming words, and when he finally did, it was a string of curses that would’ve made even the Heart priests blush. “Uh…fuck no? I mean…fuck no? Did I mention fuck fucking no?” He finally spoke in something other than vulgarities, running his fingers wildly through his hair again. “When the fuck were you going to tell me about this, then?”

“I…I have been trying to work up the courage for…several weeks now.” Rose quailed at the thought of continuing this conversation, but her Sight was, for once, clear. “It is not an easy subject to broach. I figured, while we were having our little confessional…”

Dave looked murderous for a split second, and then the moment passed and his face twisted with righteous indignation and disgust. “Fuck _no_. I’m not gonna kill my goddamn sister on the off-chance that this wasn’t some fucked-up trip made by some hopped-up priest a thousand years ago.”

“It is either that, or have the priests kill us, but…” she paused, wondering whether telling him this was a good idea. On one hand, she had been comforted by the knowledge of what was coming. On the other, she was horrified by it, and disgusted by the utter disregard the priests showed to her own opinions. She had been told, briefly, what the ritual would entail, and her stomach turned at the thought of what she was going to have to do to her brother.  “…they worry that outside interference will disrupt the spell. Make us unpure or something to that effect.”

“Right. Unpure. _Us_. The virginal vegetarian martyrs raised by fucking religious zealots in the goddamn middle of nowhere, literal miles from anything that could _possibly_ corrupt us. Like _that_ ’s possible.” He was almost snarling now, and his hands were fidgeting constantly as he struggled to rein in his anxiety. “I…am going to go fix this goddamn sword.”

That was all the warning she got before suddenly he was gone. He seemed to _melt_ rapidly into the air, and as his knees disappeared, he very nearly sent his sword tumbling into the sea. Rose’s Sight buzzed urgently at the base of her skull, and she reached out with inhuman speed, catching Caledfwlch before it could tumble over the cliff. Jaspers fled her lap at the sudden motion, disappearing into the shadows from whence he had come. Rose ignored him, focusing on not dropping the sword into the sea. It was a lot lighter than she expected, and wasn’t difficult at all to reign back in. She scooted away from the balcony’s edge cautiously and stood up, holding the sword carefully away from her body. It fit neatly into her hands, as if it had been forged for her, but she held it awkwardly.

She laid it on the ground a good distance away from the edge, and went off in search of her brother. It would be a few hours, if she recalled correctly, before he showed up again. She wandered around until then, looking around the great temple and trying to recapture some of the fearless awe she’d felt when she’d first come here.

The temple was huge, and its lack of adornment made it seem that much more desolate. It was a Space temple, one of the last, and while it made Rose feel at home, reminding her of the stark bareness of the Void where she’d been raised, she knew that Dave hated it. So she wasn’t surprised that she found him in the garden at the top of the tower, the only place where there was any color or warmth. The plants that grew here weren’t technically alive, magically suspended at their peak of magnificence for centuries, but it was the closest they could come to life aside from each other. In the rare moments when Dave embraced the solitude this final retreat was to give them, this was where she found him. It rather defeated the purpose, in her opinion.

He was kneeling among the gourds, poking at one thick stalk absently. He didn’t look up when she came in, but she saw his hand twitch.

“Any other—” His voice broke, and he coughed self-consciously before continuing, voice carefully deadpan. “Any other earth-shattering secrets you wanna drop on me tonight, sis?”

Rose thought for a moment. She thought of their mother and father, who would be waiting for them tomorrow, faces lined with sorrow and pride. She thought of the priests and priestesses who’d helped raise her, comforting her when she cried about her inevitable death, telling her that everyone died, she was simply destined to have a death more important than any other. She thought of the first time she’d met Dave, and how she’d thought in that moment that maybe destiny wasn’t that fake after all. She thought of learning what they would be forced to do, and how she’d thought in that moment that destiny was a bitch.

Through it all, one thought rose to the surface, simple and treacherous and dangerous and hopeful.

“I believe we were side-tracked before,” she said carefully.

“Were we?” He poked hard at the stalk, which didn’t so much as tremble.

“Yes.” She crossed the room so they could stop shouting across the way like children, stopping a few feet away from him. She chose her words with even more care than usual, her hands folded primly before her. “You were telling me that ritual suicide—or fratricide, in our case—to defeat a world-eating demon sounded like, and I believe this is a direct quote, ‘some quality bullshit.’”

“Right. It is.”

“And after we got distracted by the afore-mentioned ritual slaughter, I had…a thought.”

“Wow? Really?” he interrupted, voice high and incredulous. “You had a _thought_. Alert the fucking bards, tell them to sing this shit from the heist mountaintop. Rose Lalonde had a _thought_. Someone write this shit down, send a bird to the Queen and the Scribe, this shirt deserves a royal fucking announcement.”

“Dave, you’re rambling,” she interrupted, not gently. “Let me finish.”

“Yeah, yeah.” He waved her on. He still wouldn’t look at her.

“I had a thought,” she continued. “As we discussed before our conversation took a darker turn, I have come to the conclusion that, ultimately, the fate of the world, and to a greater degree, our own personal fates, as it were, depend entirely on the choices we make. There is no higher purpose as we know it, no calling and no inevitable quest. Even important quests, like those of the Heirs, aren’t _mandatory_. Not really. No one can truly _force_ anyone to do anything, and no one can truly predict the future with any certainty. Put simply, I don’t really believe in destiny. In fate. In the inevitability of all things. I suppose, to a certain degree, that _would_ include prophecies, wouldn’t it?”

Dave hesitated, looking at her for the first time out of the corner of his eye. “I…suppose,” he agreed cautiously.

“And you have already stated your firm opinion on the prophecy, which I believe can be summed up perfectly by the quote I mentioned above—”

“It’s before, Lalonde, not above, we’re not in a fucking book, we’re having a conversation.”

“Hush and let me talk.”

“Yes, _Mother_.”

Rose lips thinned, and she pushed on, before her nerves could get the better of her. “Anyway. It occurred to me that…if I don’t believe in prophecy, and you don’t believe in _this_ prophecy—I make no assumptions as to your general opinion of them—then it seems rather silly that we should sacrifice our lives for it.” She held her breath and asked, voice soft and unsure, “…don’t you agree?”

Dave said nothing. He had frozen in his place, hand still outstretched, finger hovering inches from the pumpkin vine. She could almost hear the way his mind struggled to come to terms with what she had just said, to translate it, to process it, to come up with a reaction, and thus a reply. The silence stretched on, and Rose was a heartbeat away from turning and fleeing the room when he finally broke the silence.

“Well when you put it like that,” he drawled, and turned to look at her, eyebrows raised and mouth pulled into an empty smirk, “it does sound kinda stupid, doesn’t it?”

Rose’s relief was obvious this time, and she knew it, and she didn’t care. This was no Void temple, and there was no priest ready to jump out and scold her for showing such strong emotion. She sagged with relief, face softening even as her heart was racing and her stomach was churning. Dave stood slowly, turning to face her with his hands in his pockets. He tilted his head to the side. His bangs had fallen into a more natural place, only half-hiding the blood-red gear on his head.

"It does,” she said, struggling to keep up the charade. “Now that I’ve given a modicum of thought, I’ve come to the conclusion that this entire situation is rather stupid. A game of make-believe gone horribly wrong.” At his stricken expression, she rushed to correct herself, “Not on the part of the priests and priestesses, of course. I have no doubt that _they_ believe. But as you said earlier…isn’t all of this just a charade? We’ve been going along with this scheme since our births, and it seems ridiculous that we would keep going along with until our deaths.”

Dave made no effort to keep up their game of words and avoidance. He cut straight to the point, smirk fading and eyebrows descending back to a manageable level. “So…what exactly are you suggesting here, Rose?” He didn’t sound accusing, didn’t sound angry, didn’t sound like he was about to march down the mountain and report her for her heresy. He just sounded…curious.

He knew. She knew he knew. She could see it in his eyes, the hope that didn’t quite dare to shine, the fear of what would happen if she put what they both wanted into words. She took a deep breath, and talked around it.

"Well, it seems to me that if there is a situation as silly and dangerous as this, then the mature and responsible thing to do would be to remove ourselves from it. The prophecy didn’t even specify when the demon was supposedly coming, if come he does. Our deaths seem to be little more than a precaution at best, and if I like to think that if I really am destined to have a meaningful death, it will be a touch more meaningful than _that_. I’ve always found it odd that, given that I’m supposed to be able to sense the most fortunate path instinctually, I’ve never really felt very committed to the idea of this whole thing.” She tried to talk like he was, she really did, but drama and verbosity had been drilled into her since birth, much like avoidance and deference had been drilled into Dave. “Plainly put, I don’t think I want to die for something I don’t believe in…something I’ve _never_ believed in. I don’t want _you_ to die for something I don’t believe in.”

 She paused, and slowly, deliberately, reached for her Sight. It didn’t always come when she called, didn’t always show her what she wanted to see, but she only needed a glimpse, a tiny little peek of the future. The Mark on her forehead shone brighter, and her eyes became pale and golden. When she spoke, it was with a voice and a half, as if another, smaller Rose were speaking along with her. “The…the priestesses won’t come for us until noon, but we would need to leave long before then, so they’ll have a cold trail to follow. There are many ways down the mountain, and Mother has told me of nearly all of them.” ‘ _In case of an emergency_ ,’ she had said, as if there was any emergency that could possibly happen to them on a mountain by the sea miles from civilization. “The best is to the east. If we take the east stairs down towards the river, and follow along the road for a few days, there is a town with a coach station. We could sell my books, or my daggers. I shouldn’t part with both, and whichever one I choose to sell will be important later on. You don’t sell anything, but take your sword with you.”

“So…what? We just…leave? Run?” He still didn’t look angry or scared or uncertain. She could tell that she wasn’t telling him anything he hadn’t thought himself, and she wasn’t tempting him with anything he hadn’t already dared to dream.

“That is what I’ve been getting at, yes,” she finally said plainly.

“Won’t they, you know…chase us?”

"Yes.” Rose didn’t need to See to know that, but she kept it on for good measure. “I don’t know how to fix that, unfortunately. My Sight is not that accurate, and its definition of ‘most fortuitous path’ is often a little bit different than mine. I’m not saying this will be the perfect plan, but…it is our best bet.”

He blinked, dropped his gaze, and looked hurriedly back up at her again. His smirk had faded, replaced by a smile that was only in his eyes. She hadn’t seen his eyes sparkle like that in months.

“Well, shit, sis,” he said. “Wish you’d thought of that earlier.”

“Better late than never?” she offered, and he actually grinned.

Rose couldn’t help grinning back, even as her mind was reeling from what she’d just said, what she’d just committed to. Was she really about to _run_ away on the eve of her Sacrifice? Was she really about to flip off everything she’d ever been told, spit in the face of every priestess who’d ever told her she was destined to be great, all for the small chance of escaping, living a half-formed fantasy of a life with her brother?

Jaspers curled around her ankle, and Rose knew that yes. She was definitely about to do all of that.

She wasn’t sure which one of them moved first, but in an instant, she and Dave met, holding onto each other so tightly that it would take an act of a god to tear them apart. She could feel Dave trembling, with fear or joy or exhaustion she didn’t know. She gripped him tighter, burying her face in his shoulder. He was breathing fast and ragged by her ear.

“I can probably fit everything we need into two bags. We each carry one,” she said softly.

"Holy shit. We’re actually doing this.”

"We’re making this happen,” she agreed.

They flew apart at a knock at the door and a polite cough, and Rose’s heart flew to her throat as she imagined a thousand horrible scenarios of someone discovering their newly formed plan. She relaxed when she saw a familiar head of pale brown hair, and deeply tanned brown skin.

“Not to interrupt what I recall to be a very touching personal moment,” Dave drawled from the doorway, “but I’m here to help you pack.”

Rose and Dave (the present Dave) exchanged a glance, and a wicked grin.

“Fuck destiny,” Rose said firmly.

“Fuck destiny,” Dave agreed.

"Yeah, man, fuck that shit. C’mon, we’ve only got a couple hours to get this show on the road. Rose’ll kill me if I don’t get back quickly.”

**Author's Note:**

> What is this AU? Who the fuck knows. Not me. I don't know.
> 
> But I like it. I may write for this again. Maybe some...post-run-away times?? Maybe between now and then, I'll be better at writing Dave. We'll see.


End file.
